Malama pono (take care of your body, mind and heart),

June Kaililani Tanoue

Kumu Hula

Kekuhi Kealiikanakaole-lilikalani-o-haililani (center) with her mother Pua Kanaka'ole Kanahele (left) and daughter Kaumakaiwa Kanaka'ole

This is Part 2 of our interview with Kekuhi Kealiikanakaole-lilikalani-o-haililani.  Kekuhi is from the highly visual and transformational Kanakaʻole family whose primary traditional Hawaiian practice directly links them to the Pele, volcanic creation of the islands.

The Kanakaʻole family hula or dance traditions are internationally known for their inherited dance and chant style that honors the creative energies of the volcano.  They trace their hula, Hawaiian cultural, lineage back eight matrilineal generations.

The second noteworthy and less known family history is the Kaniʻaulono family genealogy. The Kaniʻaulono connection directly links Kekuhi not only to an outstanding spiritual and social leadership heritage, but also links her to the primal phenomenon of the beginning of the Hawai'i universe, the creation of stars, sky, land, and one of the progenitors of the Hawaiian race, Haloa or the taro.

Kekuhi has trained in the tradition of Hula ʻAihaʻa for 39 years and was ritually elevated to the status of Kumu Hula (hula master) of Hālau o Kekuhi by her mother, Kumu Hula Pualani Kanahele and her Aunt Kumu Hula Nalani Kanakaole.

Kekuhi has taught many workshops, seminars and lectures on the topics of hula, ritual, chant, Hawaiʻi art forms, evolution of Hawaiian music and others.  Her training in the Hawaiʻi ritual process has prepared her to design and lead ceremony in Hawaiʻi for the last 20 years, including the most recent 2014 launch of Hokulea and Hikianalia on their Malama Honua World Wide Voyage.  She has been teaching the hula process since she was 10 years old.

Kekuhi is an Assistant Professor and co-creator of Hawai'i Community College's I Ola Haloa Hawaii Life Styles Program.  She was honored as 2013 Educator of the Year by the Native Hawaiian Education Association and received the distinction of the Martin Luther King, Chavez, Rosa Parks Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan in 2013.

June Tanoue:  You've talked about ancestral memory and how everything has a vibration.  What do you mean by ancestral memory and vibration?

Kekuhi: By ancestral memory I mean remembrances that come into my awareness because of my particular location or situation, whether I'm in an awake or dream state.  The location or situation have a vibration...that matches "me" both cellularly and spatially.  Hula & oli intensifies that vibration....and brings it "out" from the the distance and makes it NOW...so if I pay attention to vibrations & ancestral prompts, I should be able to be permeable to memories in a particular rock, or tree, or wind, island, river or building....

June:  And you also believe that innovation and evolution are important to keeping traditional practices alive.  What do you mean by that?

Kekuhi: To know our hula anchor is important, but to create from it is the stuff of innovation & evolution.  There is really no brand-spankin-new-new innovation, just re-creations and recycling and borrowing (from other cultures) of hula, oli, implementation, mele, vocalizations and understandings.  The hula that we create today--to connect with the above question--are not only from me NOW.  They are from life immemorial. 

June: What is your concept of time and space?

Kekuhi: Ummmm...maybe can ask my assistants this question when it comes to my calendar and time piece..hehehehe...I'm being silly.  Time is definitely one of the most challenging concepts and ways of being, for me. 

In terms of hula, mele, oli, hawai-ʻicology, there is no such challenge.  In terms of the modernity, time is the ultimate challenge.  I prefer to think of space and time in the form of story.  Soooo, maybe for me, I imagine time as story...and space as life... Wa-kea is an interesting concept of time.  The Kumulipo is a fun story of the Hawaii universeʻs coming into being.  The kaʻao (legend) of Pele is also another way that I like to know "time"...

June:  I've heard your song "Dream Woman" and love it very much.  I saw it first on 'Oiwi TV recently - but it's not there anymore. Will you record it? 

Kekuhi:  That came from a deep and intense personal place.  Something that many of us may face when we don't follow our calling. 

June:  Can you say more about the song and the process?

Kekuhi: Yes, I will record Dream woman.  Very deep, very personal...and that's why it is worth sharing.  I am vulnerable in this song...each time I sing it.  This is actually a great place to end the interview.  Because the creation of this mele is a "capstone" so to speak of our interview. 

This song talks about a space in my life when I realized that I HAD to make sense of my world in my own way, using the anchors of hula, family, ceremony, Hawaii.  Eventually serving the very anchors that fed me did not serve my spirit, in totality.  My wailua (spirit) tried to tell me that after years of successive dreams, and being dissatisfied in waking.....and eventually, my body shut down for no apparent reason.

I had to stop what I was doing and how I was thinking and literally reshape and recreate my "honua" or my earth and my spirit into something better.  I struggled with the decision to share this moment with others...until I saw my suffering in others.  Then I wrote the song at Kapaa in Kohala while we were camping.  It was a safe place to do it.  I wrote it with the exact images and thoughts that were occurring in my dream-scape and with exactly the amount of "scenes" that played out in the dream---amount of scenes = amount of verses.  

My body shutting down was my wailua waking me up.  I was forced to go inside...stop helping my family, my work, halau, foundation, the community, Hawaii and the world, and see and rebuild myself from the inside...talk about creation!!  Doesn't get any better than that!!!!

 

Here's a youtube video of Kekuhi talking about Hula.